I'm Not Much One to Cry Wolf...

Worst feeling in the world! You're busted!

"You need to get on over here," I urgently told my father about 8:30 pm over the phone. "The weather is going to get very nasty very shortly."

It was medication time! Dad heeded my words and pulled up in front of my house in 20 minutes. He was also the bearer of good news about mom's car.

"Let me line up the front end and then the car is yours," he told me as he sat down on my couch. "It's pulling to the left really badly when you put on the brakes."

"You need to get the brake rotors turned as well," I told my father, the main culprit of the pulling left, and he said he would.

Dad also smelled awful boozy tonight and he was overly jovial -- cutting up and being a regular lark.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" I asked him very worriedly.

I've only had one beers occifer.

"I haven't had that much to drink -- just two glasses of wine," he replied huffily.

Those were my famous last words when I drank until a police cruiser came pulling up behind me with his lights shining brightly in ill omen. Clang went the jail cell doors until the next morning and I would be released.

Bobby Burgers Delight...

My father gave me a big surprise tonight. You know the way to a man's heart is through his stomach right? That certainly applies to me as well. Dad brought bobby burgers or more widely known as Manwiches. He cooks them from scratch saying the stuff in the can tastes funny and has a twang.

One important thing I've noticed about my father lately is that he is no longer drinking all that wine. The boozy visits have ceased. He was playing with hell-fire with a family history of Uncles and Aunts on both sides of his family who were all severe alcoholics. My fall from grace would have been several years ago if I tried that stunt.

Pluses and Minuses...




The photo above is how far along I want to be in two or a few more months. I want to have the benchwork up and the trains rolling.

Charlie called me tonight just after my father left.

"Did Jimmy James ever show up?" Charlie asked.

Charlie was fixing to come over and see his handiwork.

"He never showed," I told Charlie -- his aggravation apparent. "I stayed close to home hoping he would be here any moment."

"He's a pain in the ass, but he sure does damn good work!"

Shades of Martha Leah...

Are embodied in me...

"Where are you?" I asked my father worriedly over the phone. "I was expecting you many hours ago."

I was starting to anxiously get ants in my pants as dad's mom would say when we would wiggle on the pew during church. I finally got up the gumption to call him (thank you withdrawal), even though he says my late mother and I try to be nosy and want to know his whereabouts and business. Hell, I was just hungry and it is close to grocery day. Hunger is a pretty good motivator when your refrigerator is barren of food and water is the only thing to drink in this house.

At that point, mom would be driving my father absolutely ape shit crazy about driving to my house and giving me my medications.

"Are you going to make him wait all night?" my Chief Advocate General would say waking my father from his boozy slumber.

Dad finally showed up around 9:30 PM telling me numerous times profusely, "I'm sorry! I fell asleep on the couch watching television,"

To my father's credit, he brought some wonderful food and lots of it. I will have to give you his recipe for some of the best rice I have ever eaten and the recipe is simple. It certainly is not low calorie let me warn you.The recipe calls for a whole stick of melted butter and beef bouillion so beware.

And the Cornucopia Floweth Forth...

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/

With the medication ritual done and behind us, the world is now my oyster -- computer and soda time till midnight, then off to bed. Yes, Papa John brought crazy meds and leftover vegetable soup tonight. He smelled kind of boozy, but not that bad. Thus continues his love affair with white Zinfandel.

There is also no words able to describe the deliciousness of my father's vegetable beef soup.As soon as my father left, I had it in the microwave for 5 minutes.

"Sorry about not having any cornbread," my father told me very apologetically. "I realized when I got back from the grocery store that I was almost out of cornmeal. I didn't have the heart to go back and get it."

"Shelby, Charlie's sister, made me a chocolate cake today and I will bring you some tomorrow after we cut it for the first time. It looks decadent."

I told my father to get a carton of full-fat Bavarian style buttermilk for his cornbread, but the caveat is that the evil empire of Walmart is the only place where you can go to get it in town. I told him he could send me in on a recognizance mission.

"It will make your cornbread taste absolutely heavenly," I told Big Papa John.

Boozy, He Was...

"Your father just jumped all over me," mom said on the phone crying pitifully.

We have a system due to my phone phobias that mom rings once and my father rings three times for me to call them back.

"What happened?" I asked very alarmed.

"It was after 9:30 and he still hadn't brought your medications so I got onto him," mom exclaimed with a sniffle. "I told him he should be ashamed for making you wait so long."

"Mom, it's not worth it," I told her. "Just stay out of stuff like that. I appreciate you trying to be my advocate, though."

"Well, you said you had a bad day and I wanted you to feel okay," my mother retorted with more sniffles.

"Bless your heart," I told her. "You take no mind of all of that and go to bed."

Dad came pulling up in front of my house at exactly 10:09 pm. The latest he has ever arrived. I had given up and had fallen asleep in my recliner with Forensic Files droning on the TV with Maggie asleep in the bed. Maggie came tearing out of the bedroom when I hollered, "Papa's here!" He reeked of booze as well and was also dressed haphazardly. We fed and watered Maggie, Dad took out the trash, and he was on his way home not before he doled out my medications.